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Floor Speech

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Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, it has been 3\1/2\ years since August 30, 2021, when the last American forces withdrew from Afghanistan.

The withdrawal was, by any objective measure, a total fiasco. However, the Biden administration does deserve some credit for evacuating at least 120,000 Afghans in those chaotic days after the Taliban overran Kabul. It was one of the largest--if not the largest-- humanitarian airlifts in history. Nevertheless, hundreds of thousands of Afghans and their families remain stranded in Afghanistan and other countries, especially Pakistan.

Many of these people had worked for our government or participated in programs funded by the United States, in women's rights, in education, judicial and economic reform, in counternarcotics, and many other areas.

These refugees worked with and for our government, our soldiers, our diplomats, and our intelligence officers. Some of these refugees have made it safely to the United States, thanks to the determined persistence of humanitarian organizations, including one in Vermont, the Vermont Afghan Alliance, and the outstanding work of Molly Gray and her staff.

These organizations have advocated for refugees ceaselessly. They have not forgotten what those refugees did for our soldiers in Afghanistan. And these organizations have helped arrange for the practical needs that refugees face--housing, employment, and other social services--upon their arrival in the United States.

I so appreciate the work of the Vermont Afghan Alliance and the many other refugee assistance organizations around the country, including in your State, Mr. President. They have been indispensable in helping us meet our obligation to support the Afghans who helped our soldiers. That is our obligation.

But, ultimately, the resettlement is the responsibility of the Federal Government. In the end, the Biden administration did fall short in its promises to the Afghan refugee population. This population of refugees exists, I state again, because of their work with and for our government, for our soldiers, for our diplomats, and our intelligence officers. We have abandoned our partners in their time of need.

One of the things, the screening process for these refugees became hopelessly bureaucratic, opaque, and fraught with inexplicable delays, including the processing of long-delayed special immigrant visas for Afghans who supported the U.S. mission. Many of them were interpreters. Congress failed by not providing the necessary funds and authority to streamline the resettlement process.

And then, regrettably, in one of President Trump's first Executive orders, signed on January 20, he made the situation exponentially worse by suspending admission to the United States of Afghan refugees. And now Pakistan has threatened to deport them back to Afghanistan where many of them would face the risk of arrest and, literally, execution.

Today, thousands of Afghan refugees are facing total abandonment by the U.S. Government, and this is despite the fact that they completed or they have nearly completed the laborious and time-consuming process of obtaining the necessary security and medical clearances for themselves and their families.

I would like to share one example. For over a year, my office has tried to help an Afghan man, now in Vermont, who worked at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. This man is working to support fellow Afghans in finding employment for Afghans in Vermont. This man's father served as a Deputy Minister of Justice supporting U.S. rule of law projects.

Since 2021, the father and his family have been hiding in a third country, knowing they would face arrest and persecution if they are deported back to Afghanistan. Then, in December 2024, after years of waiting, they were finally cleared to fly to the United States. He thought his father was coming home. The son had already signed the lease for an apartment and was paying the rent for this to happen. But since January 20, as a result of the President's order, the father and his family have remained in hiding, preparing for the worst as the son is continuing to pay rent on an apartment that was to be available for his father.

You know, this is really shameful. These are folks who were there for us and our soldiers and our diplomats and our intelligence officers. And the situation for this family is typical of the situation for so many Afghan families who served us.

I have long believed that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan was a terrible mistake. Tracking down Osama Bin Laden and the other members of al-Qaida responsible for the September 11 terrorist attacks was justifiable and was necessary. But spending literally hundreds of billions of dollars to try to transform a country of warring clans, led by corrupt and ruthless warlords with no history of democracy, was doomed to fail. Yet we did do that.

And millions of Afghans believed in us, and they shared our vision for that country. And many of them served us, acting as interpreters for the U.S. military or faithfully serving our intelligence Agencies. And these men, some of whom now live in Vermont, risked their lives for us, something that our soldiers take very seriously and have expressed immense gratitude for. Thousands were rushed to the airport in the first frantic days of the evacuation. When they got there--and some who got out--they were told to leave their wives and their children behind and that their families would join them in the United States within 1 year.

This is an obligation we have to those folks who, as a result of the collapse in Kabul, were in serious physical jeopardy. It now is 3\1/2\ years later, and I am not aware of a single evacuation or reunification of family members of these men. They are here or elsewhere, and their families are still in Afghanistan.

These refugees, as I stated and will state again because it is the heart of the matter and the heart of the obligation, they worked with our government, they worked with our soldiers, our diplomats, and our intelligence officers, and we have abandoned our partners when they need us.

Some are still waiting on the SIV processing, others on their green cards, and most on the broken promise of reunification. This is really shameful.

These men continue to stand with the United States, working in our communities, paying taxes, and growing our economy. We owe it to them, the Afghans who made it here, and to our honor to bring their families to join them.

Yet there are alarming reports that President Trump plans to ban admission to the United States for citizens of 11 countries, including Afghanistan--here is the part that is so terrifying--with no exception for Afghans and their families who qualify for the special immigrant visas or are awaiting evacuation. That is really unconscionable.

Although the Taliban leadership issued a so-called general amnesty for former officials in the U.S.-backed government more than 3 years ago, the reality is that the U.N. has reported what we knew would happen--at least 200 killings of former Afghan officials and members of the Afghan Army who were trained and equipped by the United States. The Taliban, of course, has also reneged on its pledge to uphold the rights of women, including allowing girls to attend school. Today, the situation that faces Afghan women and girls is literally no better, regrettably, than under the Taliban before the U.S. occupation.

The Trump administration's termination of USAID's assistance programs in more than 100 countries, including Afghanistan, without any meaningful review, has caused people everywhere to doubt that they can rely on the United States. We are putting our reputation in jeopardy.

President Trump and Secretary Rubio provided, literally, no credible explanation and justification, in clear violation of Congress's intent, with the destruction of these USAID Programs. But by abandoning thousands of Afghans who do face persecution if forced to return, we reinforce those doubts. And by doing so, we encourage those who have long seen the United States as a world leader and as a partner to look for more reliable partners elsewhere. That is bad for our national security.

President Trump's January 20 Executive order triggered a 90-day review of our Refugee Admissions Programs. In February, a Federal court did issue a nationwide preliminary injunction prohibiting the implementation of the order. But despite that, despite that court order, the Trump administration issued termination orders to refugee resettlement agencies in States around this country. Again, this is going to affect these folks who work for our government, our soldiers, our diplomats, and our intelligence officers. We owe them. There is no justification for us to abandon them.

I am really concerned about the administration's, what I see as an increasingly brazen flaunting of court orders. I think all of us in Congress should condemn any deviation from abiding by court orders by the administration.

I hope the administration's review of the refugee admissions is not another pretext review like we had supposedly of the USAID Programs. It cannot be an excuse to manufacture a false justification for abandoning the victims of our nation-building debacle. We have to take ownership of what it is we did.

We have to meet our commitments to people who helped us in our efforts in Afghanistan.

This must be an opportunity to expedite--expedite--the resettlement to the United States of these Afghan refugees who trusted in us and whose lives are very much at risk.

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